Gathering

A friend of ours went foraging in the woods last week and came back with sackfuls of chestnuts. He gave me a few handfuls and I roasted them this morning - they were delicious!

At work we have an apple tree at the back of the carpark that has recently been dropping loads of apples. I noticed one or two colleagues picking and eating them. They're smaller than the ones you get in the shops, and have this weird marbled red flesh as if the skin has leaked some of it's colour into them. They're super juicy and have way more flavour than your shop-bought, mass-produced apple.

So I'm now thinking the gathering part of hunting and gathering is a lot easier and much more of a 'fruitful' endeavour than I ever thought possible in today's world. What stuff have you guys been able to successfully gather?

It depends on the season, right now apples, pears, walnuts and acorns, soon mushrooms. In the Summer berries, plums, grapes. In the Spring mostly greens. There's probably other things too but that's what comes to mind at the moment.

Life is death. We all take turns. It's sacred to eat during our turn and be eaten when our turn is over. RichMahogany.

Acorns? I was always under the impression they were inedible. Probably something my mum told me when I was little to stop me eating the raw ones in the park. Do you just roast them as you would chestnuts?

Blackberries, elderberries, apples (cheating somewhat, as the neighbour lets me pick from his absurdly-prolific apple tree). Thanks for the reminder of chestnuts - I might go and search the local woods for trees, just in case the squirrels have left me any.

Apart from that... mostly just nettles in spring. I don't have the knowledge to risk mushrooms - I'd love to learn, though.

Mushrooms in spring and late fall, like now. No morels, but some tubulars that are really soft and great in butter.

Acorns can be eaten, but the center is very bitter, to the point that even deer usually attempt to spit them out. (Hunters know this sound, of it hitting the leaves) Berries and all kinds of fruit, never before about June though. Chestnuts are amazing food, very underrated. One of my dead of winter staples is rabbit stuffed with chestnut and liver pate. Very easy to make, delicious.

blackberries, apples, plums, potatoes, mint, nettles, elderflowers, water cress, seaweed, cockles, mussels, paua, oysters, kina, mushrooms, giant puffballs, i have had a few deer and wild pigs fall off hills onto my plate too. along with the odd rabbit. i have avoided the ducks as i dont like gathering them but they are plentiful in duck season.